Following 2021’s Ides EP, singer/rapper Dessa released her first full-length in five years back in September with Bury the Lede landing via the label/rap collective Doomtree. The record continues to see the Minnesota native balance electro-pop and hip-hop (with assistance from long-time co-producers Lazerbeak and Andy Thompson) while leaving plenty of space to showcase her inventive lyrics.
That sense of creativity even shines through in Dessa’s “Neighborhoods” session she filmed for us in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, which happens to be the home of Wizard of Oz star Judy Garland. “The morning after playing a festival in northern Minnesota, I stumbled across one of those outdoor pianos,” Dessa recalls as she explains how she landed on the location. “It was stationed in the entryway of the Judy Garland Museum—a one-story building marking the birthplace of its namesake. I sat down down to play a few bars, tryna figure out which keys were totally broken and should be avoided, and which keys were only sort of broken and sounded pretty rad. My new record drops a couple of Wizard of Oz references, so it felt fitting to record a little performance in Judy’s front yard.”
Dessa also shouts out her bandmates Aviva Jaye on backing vocals and Joshua Holmgren on piano, along with bassist Ian Allison for his “weirdly impressive iPhone cinematography.” Check out the performance—and a brief tour of the museum’s exterior—below.
